The following morning the four were off at dawn without making breakfast, taking with them some of the cooked meat left over from last night’s hearty feast. Upon reaching the valley of the Big Dry itself, Kelly’s bunch finally discovered Snyder’s trail poking its way up a northern branch. At that point the scouts decided they would rest some, giving their horses a chance to graze on the thick bottomland grasses and themselves an opportunity to work on the cold meat in their saddlebags.
Resuming their march up the branch of the Big Dry, they entered a flat section of country, where they soon spotted a distant horseman sitting still upon a ridgetop, watching their progress. The scouts waved, hoping to receive some sign of friendliness in return, but instead the horseman disappeared over the far side of the hilltop.
“Injun or white man?” Woods asked.
“Weren’t no Injun,” Johnston surmised. “No feathers. Didn’t see me no shield.”
Luther said, “White man would’ve come on down—don’t you figure, fellas?”
“Likely so,” Woods agreed. “Best we keep our eyes skinned here on out.”
Not long after pushing on up Snyder’s trail, at the base of the ridge where they had spotted the lone horseman, the scouts entered a rough, broken country slashed with brushy ravines and cutbanks jaggedly scarring their way down from the high ground.
A single shot suddenly rang out … then a ragged volley of rifle fire spat orange from nearby bushes just ahead of them.
It was all Kelly and the others could do to control their horses at that moment as the animals reared and kicked, doing their best to twist about and flee. Cross and Luther were the first to get their rifles up and pointed at the brush where the gun smoke hung among the leafless branches. Both of them fired.
From the vegetation across the coulee burst at least five figures, breechclouts swaying like flags, feathers flapping as the warriors turned tail and fled up a wide ravine.
Likely they’ve got their ponies hid up there, Luther thought.
For the next few minutes the scouts loped up and down that piece of broken ground, trying to find some way round to get at the fleeing warriors—but in the end could not because the ravine was too wide and deep to cross.
“They picked their spot good,” Woods announced breathlessly as they gathered once more.
Their eyes were still watchful and wary, their weapons still at the ready.
“Bet that son of a bitch we spotted back up yonder on top of the ridge give the rest of ’em the word we was coming through,” Cross declared.
“A good spot for an ambush,” Kelly agreed. “Place where they could get us close enough to do us all in—and be quick at it.”
Johnston said, “I figger one of ’em got a itchy finger afore we was all in their trap.”
“You can thank your lucky stars for that,” Kelly told them. “If they’d all been patient men—”
“We’d all be
“C’mon, fellas,” Kelly said, sawing his horse back to the northwest again. “Time we pushed hard to catch those soldiers. This country’s turned out to be a mite less than friendly.”
They didn’t catch up to Snyder’s battalion until the following evening, Friday, the twenty-fourth, far to the northwest up that tributary of the Big Dry. And for the next three days the column marched and camped, marched and camped, suffering the slush and mud during the day, then enduring the galling cold at night, without once encountering an Indian trail nor any sign of the warriors who had ambushed the scouts. On the twenty-seventh Snyder’s battalion finally reached the rendezvous site at Black Buttes.
“It’s like Sitting Bull’s village just up and disappeared,” Billy Cross said the night of the twenty-seventh at their fire.
“Maybeso they crossed over the Missouri,” Johnston declared.
“We’d a’seed the place where they crossed, don’t you figger?” Jim Woods argued.
“Doesn’t make much sense, that much is true,” Kelly explained. “If the Sitting Bull people were running west, why—one of these battalions should have bumped into ’em by now.”
Woods slapped his knee, saying, “At least seen some hide or hair of ’em!”
On the following day, Tuesday, the twenty-eighth, Snyder ordered F and ? companies to remain in camp while Irish-born Captain Edmond Butler was directed to lead C and D on a patrol up that north fork of the Big Dry with Kelly as their guide. Just past noon it began to snow, then quickly thickened into a howling storm before Butler’s detail turned back to their bivouac, emerging ghostlike out of the whipping, cavorting snow behind their scout, who successfully brought them in without losing his way in the blizzard.
“You find anything?” Woods asked as Kelly dragged saddle and blanket to the ground.
Luther collapsed right beside his gear. “Not a feather, Jim. Can’t tell you what we might’ve seen if the weather hadn’t closed in on us.”
Cross walked up to ask, “You think Sitting Bull’s out there?”
Luther took a moment, then wagged his head. “I don’t think we’ll find him. Maybe Miles will. But as for us—I got a strong feeling we’re poking down the wrong rabbit hole.”
The fierce wind had sculpted the snow into huge icy drifts by dawn the following morning. Nonetheless, Snyder was of a mind to try to break a trail and continue his push north. His column struggled no more than two miles in more than five hours of grueling march. The captain conferred with Butler, then decided they would bivouac right there. At the order weary men fell to either side of their narrow foot trail hammered through the snow, collapsing back into the icy drifts, exhausted, shuddering with the tremendous cold as a relentless wind continued to blow ground snow about them.
On Thursday, the thirtieth, National Thanksgiving Day, Captain Snyder called Luther over to his windbreak formed by an outstretched gum poncho.
“Kelly, I want you to pick two men. Leave the others with us.”
“You want me to go back out to scout for the Indians who aren’t there?”
“I understand your position perfectly,” Snyder replied. “And, frankly, I’m beginning to agree with you.”
“Where are you sending me, if not to look for the Hunkpapa?”
“Find Miles,” Snyder requested. “Maybe he’s bumped into the hostiles north of the river for some reason and can’t rejoin us here as he planned.”
“You afraid he might have pitched into something more than he could handle?”
Snyder looked away and shrugged slightly. “All I know is that the time for our rendezvous here at Black Buttes has come and gone—and I have no idea where the general is.”
“How long can you hang in here, Captain?” Kelly asked.
“My quartermaster sergeant tells me we’re running low on everything. I can cut the men’s rations—but we’re damn well out of forage for the stock already.”
“Which means you’ll have to turn back for the Tongue before too long.”
“Give yourself two more days, Kelly.” Snyder said it almost like a prayer as he shuddered, pulling his blanket more tightly under his chin. “Go see what you can find out about Miles—then get back here by December second.”
On the evening of the thirtieth of November, Colonel Miles separated his command from a battalion he would have led by his most trusted officer. That night Frank Baldwin and Companies G, H, and I camped apart with their scout, Vic Smith. Just after sundown they drew their rations and the forage for their complement of six-mule teams, loading it and their ammunition into thirteen wagons, then spent their first night apart from the rest of the regiment.
Before dawn on the following morning, 1 December, Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin led those three companies of 112 men beneath the light of a full moon, their noses pointed east on a chase after Sitting Bull’s swelling camp of hostiles last reported to be gathering somewhere on the Redwater River … even if that chase would take him all the way to Fort Buford at the mouth of the Yellowstone.
There were no written orders. After seven years of serving Miles on the southern plains, the commander of the Fifth Infantry trusted Baldwin’s judgment implicitly in the field. After all, Baldwin was a non-West Pointer, like himself. Forget all that politics and book learning, Miles believed. If he wanted a job done, turn it over to a man like Frank Baldwin: pure gumption, grit, and fighting tallow.
